ROCHESTER — The Rochester School Board’s Instruction Committee met this week to discuss the future of competency-based grading in the district and deliberated whether a “failing” grade should be eliminated from schools altogether.

Assistant Superintendent Mary Moriarty updated committee members on the new grading style, which emphasizes relearning and reassessment for students who don’t understand a lesson, rather than allowing for them to fail and move on to the next subject.

Spaulding High School’s competency-based grading system assesses students on their ability to meet a number of competencies, or skills, for each course. Students are then graded with an A (Advanced), B (Beyond Competent), or C (Competent). Failing grades are broken into two categories — NYC (Not Yet Competent) and IWS (Insufficient Work Shown). Students receiving an NYC are permitted to go through a relearning and reassessment process to try to raise their grade. Students receiving an IWS are required to make up all of their work before doing any type of relearning.

The sticking point for school officials during Thursday night’s meeting lay in what happens beyond IWS — should a student receive a failing grade if they just can’t get it?

Board member Anthony Pastelis said he would not like to see an elimination of the classic ‘F,’ stating the recent trend has been to coddle students by making every student feel like a winner. Some youth sports even do away with keeping score, he said.

“I find it almost comical though that we in Rochester seem to be a part of this nationwide trend,” he said. “’We don’t want winners and losers,’ … but you know, the kids know. Whether I won or lost, you don’t need to give me a D-minus or an F. I knew I wasn’t good at handwriting.”

Board member Julie Brown joked “back when dinosaurs roamed” she remembered failing her art class in high school and said it ruined her straight-A record. She said it was a hurtful experience.

“No matter how hard I tried (to pass), it just wasn’t possible,” she said. “Sometimes an ‘F’ can be a lasting memory that you would like to forget but you can’t.”

School Board Chairman Robert Watson requested Spaulding High Principal Rob Seaward provide the board with more data as to how the competency grading has been going at Spaulding — the Lilac City elementary schools and Rochester Middle School plan to take on the competency grading system in the near future, too, and Watson said it would be valuable for the board to learn if, for example, the school is handing out more As, or grades for advanced competency, than Fs.

In public comment, residents Doris and Robert Gates raised their concerns that the new system allow from some students to excel and move on easily while others are penalized. Additionally, the said students who try hard all semester long often achieve the same grade as students who miss class and then make-up the work easily through the electronic program PLATO right before the end of the term. The board discussed how with every grading system, there are symbols that do no accurately represent student’s work. Seaward said for example, he could roll out of bed 10 minutes before an assignment was due and ace it, while board member Anne Grassie said she tried everyday to get better at chemistry and still made out with less than outstanding grades.

Moriarty said she would present the board with more data in the future to consider the competency system. Doris Gates added she felt the board should wait longer to analyze how the competency system is playing out at the high school level before applying it to the primary level schools.

The state currently only requires high schools to incorporate the competency-based learning system into their district while Rochester was recently applauded by the Alliance for Excellent Education for its ambition in applying the competency system.